Story:Beyond Schoda
Synopsis A young Sceen makes the bold step of moving from the controlled safety of an interstellar habitat to the peripheral world of Aegru (orbiting Schoda), which is in the lengthy process of being terraformed. However, an incident beneath the thick clouds of the scorched world leads him on a journey much further than he first anticipated, which could uncover a terrible flaw right in the foundations of the Zambarau Concord's society. In a few decades of interstellar travel, he will see more and meet more than many experience in their whole lifetimes. This is the first story set in the Zambarau Concord; it is designed to introduce people to the Zambarau Concord in a different perspective than that used by articles. Part 1 Chapter 1 Out in interstellar space, over two light-years from any star, an immense, dark, ring rolled through the void. Two thousand kilometres across, five hundred kilometres wide, and with walls along its edges a hundred kilometres high, the slight blue glow of a thick, contained atmosphere could be faintly discerned by the dim light of sources unapparent. Of the surface, it was too dark to make out any features. Shadows formed. The surface was gradually illuminated by an immense blue luminaire, a gentle glow at first, but it soon intensified to a blinding crescendo of artificial daylight. The surface was a crooked and angular construct of rock and ice. Glaciers carved their way through mountain ranges that dwarf the rest of the landscape, only to collapse from the edge of great cliffs into gaping ravines below. Great crystals of brine stuck jagged out of crevices and all was covered in a generous layer of glistening methane snow, which rose as a thin vapour in the morning heat. All across the landscape were dotted silver vines, suspended against a crushing gravity by silver blue balloons. Forests of great, hollow, silver-blue pillars pointed skyward; no leaves to be scorched by the oppressively bright sunlight, convection blew plankton out of the holes in their tops to be consumed by silver-grey beasts the size of whales that glided through the wispy white clouds in the blue sky, pinpricks as seen from the ground. A stripe across the sky - great, wide, faint - depicted a white-and-blue landscape, just as cold, just as real, two thousand kilometres away. In the early morning, the moment froze; in the slight breeze, everything was completely still; for a few minutes, there was silence. Movement. A small mound of snow rustled, giving off a puff of vapour. It shook again; a small avalance of ice and snow landed at the bottom of a vine, causing one of the balloons to break off and glide through the thick air, scattering its seed as it went. Four long, pointed, silver-blue, crab-like legs slowly stretched out from the mound one by one. This was gradually followed by a body of similar colour that looked like squashed chestnut, then four other legs; atop the body were two eyes, moving independantly they flitted around as the creature analysed the landscape around it. Moving painfully slowly, it took several minutes for the creature to completely remove itself from the mound of snow. Breaking the silence, the creature rose from its crouched legs and gave off a series of low pitched barks and groans. In the distance, another creature responded. "Klatchi! I hear you over there!" Chapter 2 "So this is the day, Pnosta!" shouted Klatchi as he slowly rounded a great brine crystal. Klatchi was slightly larger than Pnosta, his shell was a darker blue and textured with much more detailed patterns, indicating he was much older. Like their movement, the rate at which the two Sceen spoke would be considered exceedingly slow by most aliens, but was completely normal to them. By now Klatchi had stopped in front of Pnosta. "Yes, this is the day," replied Pnosta, his reply accompanied by a slight low moan (indicating he knew what was coming next). "Then this is a better time than ever for me to make sure you watch a hunt!" "Wouldn't the time of my upbringing have been a better opportunity for you to make me watch some primeval practice, of which, from my present knowledge, only you ever mention" "Alas, yes! But the past cannot be changed, the best we can do is make the most of the present!" "Unless, of course, you could go to the past." "Thankfully, that would be impossible; any closed timelike curve would immediately collapse" "As far as we know." "Do you see any people from the future?" "No, but there are interpretations involving multiple timelines which resolve such things." "Ah, but we are not multiple timelines, we are here and now." Pnosta paused, raising up on his legs slightly for a reply, but then lowered back down submissively. He owed it to his father for his upbringing; anyway, the day was alredy an eighthcycle through - experience had taught him that debate would not make this matter pass. "I'll watch the hunt" "'A cycle of time will buy you a lifetime of pride' - and I did come out personally this time, after all!" A low but frequent meeping from his father told Pnosta that Klatchi was obviously very happy that his son had given in. "Emphasis on 'watch,' Klatchi." They slowly made their way around the brine crystal, which stook five metres out of the ground to their left, covered in slowly vapourising methane snow, with a steep slope of snow to their right. After that, a great glacier lay before them; the glacier was covered in many thousands of vines with their floating balloons, anchored in the tiny cracks and crevices across the glacier. Beyond the glacier a great silver pyramid emerged from the snow drifts that climbed the opposing mountain of the valley that had been carved out by the glacier. The pyramid, half buried in snow, was made up of many interlocking smaller silver pyramids and was the meeting place of hundreds of thousands of Sceen. Both of Pnosta's eyes quickly flicked toward a white vehicle to his left, hugging the side of the brine crystal they had just walked around. "Was I meant to see that?" "Do you think I'd make such a bad job of concealing it? Get on; if we walk it would be an eighthcycle until the end of the day by the time we get there!" The vehicle was mostly white, similar to the snow, and about nine metres long and three metres wide in total. There was a flat surface with raised, box-shaped perches for six Sceen, this was surrounded by an inflatable section, pointed at each end of the vehicle so that the vehicle looked like an inflatable raft. The inflatable section concealed electrostatic skids. The two climbed on the vehicle and sat on the perches (cuboid boxes). On a mental cue from both Sceen, the vehicle silently picked up speed and slid across the glacier toward the great silver pyramid. Chapter 3 Hidden among snow, a line of Sceen slowly made their way across the glacial plain, careful not to disturb any of the vines, which could release a balloon and allude to their presence. Several groups had been making their way across the area for many cycles now, strategically changing direction to outflank a prey that was much faster than themselves. A few high-pitched clicks came from a forest of pillars, one of the Sceen in the line replied with a similar pattern of clicks; their prey did not have such a high hearing range. At this point in the day the great artificial sun in the sky was at its most intense, causing a thick layer of methane fog to form over the ground. In the distance the white fog coud be seen flowing down valleys and poaring into ravines like a great waterfall. They reached the edge of the forest of silver-blue pillars, some over a hundred metres high; all that could be heard was a faint humming as the wind blew over their hollow tops. It was slightly darker here, due to the partial shade provided by the pillars. Minutes passed. A groan was heard from under the ground, which started to shake slightly. The line of Sceen rose up on a small swell in the snow. Suddenly, there was a loud snapping sound and one of the great pillars began to tip over, it crashed loudly against another pillar and snapped in half, showering the snow with fine blue dust. The great pillar, many tonnes in weight, impacted the ground. Snow and liquid methane were thrown into the air in a big wave, but even more astonishing was the prey. An immense, flat insect, fifty metres in length and like a cockroach with dozens of spikes for legs, reared up its head. It arched its back and threw the pillar off. Hundreds of clicks and whistles could be heard from the slowly converging Sceen. The prey staggered against a smaller pillar, which cracked part way up and fell on top of a group of Sceen. Hundreds of thin green threads began to shoot through the air and stick to the prey. At first they seemed to come from nowhere, but it was soon apparent that the hunters were shooting the strings of mucus from their mouths! The prey writhed about for many minutes, becoming more and more stuck. Over millions of years, the prey had evolved a slippery coating to prevent such attacks, but silica-shelled diatoms in the Sceen mucus were breaking this coating down, absorbing water and quickly tiring the prey out. The Sceen hunters, meanwhile, were digging hard into the ground, unable to move fast enough to do anything more effective. Some came unstuck, flying through the air as the creature writhed. Some were repeatedly bashed against the ground or the pillars and were forced to cut their mucus cords. Others simply had their strings of mucus wrapped around the pillars, making the prey even more entangled. After literally hours the prey was moving sluggishly. It was tired, dehydrated and immobalised in a tangled web of green mucus wrapped among the forest of pillars. The mucus was starting to decompose and turn runny - this did not matter - the Sceen were already making their slow crawl over the helf-dead prey to deliver their precise, killing blow. Meanwhile, other Sceen were retrieving those who had been buried under the pillars, safely folded up into their shells. Pnosta appeared in front of one of the horizontal pillars, out of nowhere. "Do you know how much preparation I could have got done in the time I was watching that hunt?" Klatchi replied, his speech still slightly high-pitched from the exhilaration, "That's why it's better to get involved!" "Unlike you, I have no reason to take part in primitive passtimes." "But you can't deny that this is who you are, what you evolved for. It's important that you remember and learn from your heritage." "Our heritage is that we are ultimately animals that live in the snow. You cannot choose what part of our history is 'heritage' and what is not, Klatchi." Instead of continuing the debate, Klatchi relented, "I'm afraid we have no time for debate for the time being, a new chapter of your life is about to begin!" Pnosta gave a krii of agreement, and the two felt momentarily disoriented. A few seconds later they had 'returned' to the quiet room. The circular room was dimly lit from the top of the domed ceiling, which curved right down to the floor which sloped slightly to the centre of the room; all around were perches, some with Sceen sat on then, still and silent; everything in the room was black. The two quietly made their way out. Chapter 4 "Are you sure you don't want to bring anything along?" asked Klatchi. "Nothing physical..." relied Pnosta, he continued, "...the data for most of what I need has been sent to the starship." Both were making their way down a silver metal tunnel shaped like a half-circle. There were no windows here; they just got covered in snow. The tunnel ended with two sets of transparent doors, which opened automatically as they crawled through into the maglev trian. The interior of the train was decorated mainly white and blue, with large windows running along each side and perches and tables at regular intervals along the fronts of each window. "Let's sit here" said Klatchi Once they had sat down, Pnosta looked around and commented, "It looks like the QC overestimated the number of people who travel off the ring, the area is almost deserted" "Why not ask?" Pnosta gave a slight hum, he was just wondering, he wasn't really that bothered. Nevertheless he switched his neural interface back on and gave a mental query. "Intuitive computers predict that migration into and out of the ring will rise considerably in the near future. The new maglev system should be substantial enough to handle the increased movement of people," ''was his reply from the habitat quantum computer. "You see!" exclaimed Klatchi, "The QCs always know best; why do you think they run the place?" Pnosta had to agree with that. Sceen quantum computers now ran societies right across the Zambarau Concord; QC-run organisations constantly out-competed conventional organisations. By now the maglev had silently moved off. A flash of light illuminated the carriage as the train came out into the open before the windows polarised; the maglev ran through its transparent vacuum tube along the edge of a great caldera. Pnosta looked out into the caldera below, "Wow! Look at that!" Across the caldera was a sight that looked, literally, quite alien in the usual Sceen environment of whites and blues and silvers. A great purple forest extended across the base of the caldera. The trees were unlike anything you should see on a Sceen world; they were pillar like, but they had branches that ended in great pink balloons and were covered in a web of what looked like purple vines or some kind of rigid slime. There was great variation, however, with some trees that look like giant purple glistening mushrooms, and others that look like great crystalline spikes thrust out of the ground. In the distance something could be seen rising out of the forest. "Look! Over there!" said Klatchi. A box appeared around the object on the window and expanded to zoom in. They could see a great pink and purple whale-like creature that looked like it was covered in great balloons and had great leafy sail-like structures sticking out of its body all over it. "I know about those..." said Pnosta, "...its the Zambarau take on the great flyers of our own sky. They think they can improve on them by giving them balloons and allowing them to photosynthesise." Klatchi moaned, "The Zambarau want everything to photosynthesise!" "That's a very broad stereotype." "It was meant to be." By now the maglev was decelerating as they arrived at the space port. Before their view was obscured as the maglev entered the stopping point they saw the great silver electromagnetic accelerator, many kilometres long, rising up in a arc into the sky. Chapter 5 "I've never understood this space port..." Klatchi wondered aloud, "...I never saw any accelerators in my time on New Sephamagore, and surely the atmosphere is too thick to literally ''shoot ''anything into space." "Why don't you just ask?" Pnosta said with a mischievous krii. He was getting back at his father for earlier. So Klatchi queried the QC, to which he got the reply, ''"You are on an interstellar habitat. Artificial gravity on interstellar hebitats is provided by centripetal force. Accelerating an object against the direction of rotation will negate this effect. Therefore, artificial gravity is effectively reduced in the frame of motion of the object. This allows for more efficient utilisation of energy when launching from an interstellar habitat." Pnosta turned around expectantly, but Klatchi just said, "Interesting." Debate was often considered the sign of a good relationship in Sceen society, but parents would often begin to 'break off' when their children became old enough to leave and start their own lives. "Well..." said Klatchi, "...it's time for you to leave the habitat like I left New Sephamagore all those centuries ago." "I can always stay here." replied Pnosta, who thought he heard a twinge of longing in his father's voice. "Nonesense!" Klatchi exclaimed, "When I first arrived here Schoda was a peripheral world with hardly any settlement. Now it's a burgeoning solar system that's attracting people from all over! You've always warmed to the idea of building your own world; now you can have a hand in that!" That was true. Schoda had a planet called Aegru that was in the first stages of geoengineering - not for Sceen, but for Astatines and Drones (Intuitive Computers had advised that geoengineering the planet for Astatines was the most efficient course of action). There were, however, colder rocky planets further out and plenty of opportunity for asteroid habitats, and Pnosta wanted to be a part of it. They reached the hangar. It was a reasonably large semicircular-prism shaped area with grey metal walls. The space was only slightly longer than it was wide and had a great maglev track running through the middle at a slight incline; mounted on the track was the shuttle. The shuttle was a silver, almost reflective, angular, dart-like structure about as big as a house and had discrete, sweeping silver air intakes running along its sides. Pnosta and Klatchi themselves had come out onto a gantry running along one of the walls of the hangar (walls which curved over their heads in a great semicircle). An enclosed gantry had extended out and attatched itself to the shuttle; after saying goodbye to his father Pnosta entered the shuttle. Chapter 6 The interior of the shuttle was simple and altogether quite drab. It was like an angular, trapezium-shaped tunnel with perches along the sides. There were no portholes and no cockpit; computers were considered much more reliable. The metal of the interior had been painted white, but this seemed to be the only care taken to aesthetics; the Sceen built things to be functional. The door had closed and it was nearly time to launch, so Pnosta sat in a perch. These perches, instead of being just simple boxes, were more curved with raised backs to better support the Sceen under high acceleration. A moment later there was an announcement from the QC, "Launch will be in one millicycle. Please prepare for launch." Soon, the passengers began to feel a slight acceleration. Outside the shuttle, Klatchi could hear a loud hum as the shuttle slowly slid along the launch track via magnetic levitation. Once out of the hangar, the shuttle's acceleration increased as it rushed along the track and the track slowly curved up into a slight incline; as the atmosphere became more rarified the shuttle sped up against the spin of the ring and the centripetal force pulling it toward the ground lessened. Interstellar habitats are so big that they do not require a roof, as the atmosphere is contained within the giant walls along the edge of a ring like water in a dish. The shuttle whistled along the track, now at an angle of nearly 45 degrees and travelling at hundreds of metres per second. Passengers watching the view from the front of the shuttle on transparent, pull-down screens could see the fast-approaching end of the track curving up before them. Then, seconds later, the shuttle fired off the end of the track like a bullet from a gun, travelling at over one kilometre per second. Faces of its angular structure were glowing hot from the speed at which it left the atmosphere, but this was glared out by the great blue flame leaving the back of the shuttle's thermonuclear engines. Inside the shuttle, gravity gradually seemed to get weaker as the shuttle matched the rotation of the ring in the opposite direction. Pnosta lifted one of his front legs, the end of which split down the middle into two 'fingers.' He pulled down a screen and brought up an image of the starship he would travel in, an indistinguishable pinprick at the moment, but growing by the minute. That would be his home for the next 6 years. Klatchi watched as, in the distance, there was a slight flare of light as the shuttle left the launch track. "Stay safe..." he said compassionately, then his voice turned slightly sinister, "...there's more going on at Schoda than you realise." Then he entered the next off-world shuttle. Chapter 7 Starship 2316 was the standard type of starship that would be expected in interstellar space. The whole thing was just over a kilometre long. At the very front were two spherical habitation modules, side by side; the habitation modules were in sockets as if they were the balls in two ball-and-socket joints. These sockets were connected by a fat tube to a cylindrical service module; by now Pnosta could make out the lights covering these modules on his screen. The service module was connected by another fat tube to a set of 12 immense fuel tanks, arranged in a hexagonal pattern around the tube in columns of 2. Finally, half of the starship's length was taken up by a long truss extending from the back of the fuel tanks to the small antimatter-fusion engine. An arm stuck out from each side of the array of fuel tanks; from each arm a great silver heat radiator was extended down to the comparatively small engine, making the starship look like it had two great triangular sails. "Starship 2316 is one of the few spacecraft that has a name." ''said the shuttle's QC, "What name is that?" asked Pnosta; he knew that some QCs gave themselves names; for some reason it only ever seemed to be in starships, though. He guessed that 'Commissioner' quantum computers that ran solar systems were too important and day-to-day QCs weren't sophisticated enough. ''"Starship 2316 is called Ja'Rome." Most of the starship was white but Pnosta could see dirty marks and streaks on some parts; Ja'Rome was obviously an old starship. "Where did this starship come from?" "Starship 2316 was constructed in the Affiliated Habitats shipyards in Ahd 736 years ago. The last stop of Starship 2316 before Interstellar Habitat 36 was Rawak, Gesse. Starship 2316 runs on the following route; Affiliated Habitats, Ahd; Interstellar Habitat 12; Interstellar Habitat 15; Mloktan, Indusmart; Niima, Coklat Kerdil; Interstellar Habitat 23; Rawak, Gesse; Interstellar Habitat 36; Affiliated Habitats, Schoda; Affiliated Habitats, Hilmun Scatter; Interstellar Habitat 48; Interstellar Habitat 49; Oomrize, Kaymar; Interstellar Habitat 25; Affiliated Habitats, Moklok; Interstellar Habitat 18; Interstellar Habitat 11; before returning to Affiliated Habitats, Ahd." In typical Sceen fashion, Pnosta had taken all of this in. He was pretty impressed, actually; Ja'Rome was in a route with some quite prestigious systems. By now, the shuttle was in a complicated dance with the starship's service module; constantly firing its thrusters to stay in line with the rotating spacecraft. The centipetal force had caused the passengers of the shuttle to be pushed back down onto their perches in (almost) normal gravity. "That's quite a long route. How long does it take?" "The route of Starship 2316 takes 204 years." Pnosta did the calculations in his head. Despite being 736 years old, Ja'Rome had only travelled around its small section of the Zambarau Concord three complete times. The door in the back of the shuttle opened, allowing the Sceen to enter the starship. "I will transfer access to your neural interface over to the QC of Starship 2316." Part 2 Chapter 8 "Welcome to Starship 2316. Your nestroom is room 096 on level 2 of the habitation module 1. Do you require directions?" "No..." replied Pnosta, "I know the general layout of these starships." Along with the other Sceen, who by their reaction had obviously been told where to go by the starship's QC aswell, Pnosta headed for a rectangular entrance in the back of the shuttle, the door of which had silently slid open after the shuttle had docked to reveal the spacious interior of a cylindrical lift. The inside of the lift was brightly lit and coloured a very light shade of blue. "Have you travelled interstellar before?" "No, but I studied the layout of this starship before I left. Also, since I am travelling from an Interstellar Habitat this is not strictly interstellar travel." "We are outside of the heliopause of the nearest solar system. We are therefore travelling between stars." The QC was debating with him. What a nice personal touch! You could almost mistaken it for being artificially intelligent; of course, every Sceen knows QCs are as intelligent as a basic mathematical alogrithm in which you repeatedly run the result through the alogrithm to get a string of apparently ''random numbers (Klatchi had always used this as an example when Pnosta was young). ''"My name is Ja'Rome." Pnosta gave a small krii of amusement. There was no need for introductions; the QC would already know everything about him from the Commissioner of the Interstellar Habitat. The door of the lift slid shut and Pnosta felt the lift 'rise' into the bowels of the service module, as the lift got closer to the axis of rotation of the starship the effect of gravity was slowly reduced, by the time the lift stopped he was once again in zero gravity. This time the circular top of the lift opened up. Perpendicular to the lift shaft was a long tunnel that ran along the axis of the starship; the tunnel was almost clinically white and very brightly lit; the Sceen in the lift tumbled out and floated down the tunnel toward the habitation module, Pnosta was the last one out. As he was about to push off the wall to make himself float down the tunnel, Pnosta glanced in the other direction, where the tunnel disappeared into the distance. "The central access tunnels run between the fuel tanks, along the truss and terminate at the engines. Access to the engines is only possible once temperature and radiation have lowered to acceptable levels." Interesting, though Pnosta didn't really care. After travelling part way down the tunnel and taking another lift to level 2 of the habitation module (far enough from the axis of rotation for artificial gravity to return), Pnosta finally made his way down a corridor with the doors to rooms running along either side. Finding his room, Ja'Rome opened the door automatically and Pnosta made his way inside. The room was reasonably large with silver metallic walls like in the pyramid he lived in on Interstellar Habitat 36. One wall of the cuboid room was actually a large screen, displaying a moving landscape from New Sephamagore, as if he was looking through a window. There was no furnature in the room, but there was a lage pile of snow in the corner for Pnosta to bury himslf in. In fact, it was getting late. "How long until the starship sets off for Schoda?" "Approximately 1 cycle." One day until launch. Pnosta had plenty of time to sleep. Chapter 9 The next morning, just before launch, Pnosta was in the gallery. The gallery was the largest room on level 1 and was intended as being the main assembly area for passangers on the starship; level 1 was right at the end of the spherical habitation module. The 'floor' was like a very shallow transparent bowl, through which the interstellar habitat could be seen in all its glory; suspended above the floor was a wide circular metal gantry, on here were the tables and perches for the passangers. Three walkways connected the gantry like the spokes of a wheel to a central hub with three curved desks and the central lift to the upper levels of the habitation module. Pnosta sat on a perch, shooting strings of green mucus at what looked like diced meet in a small pile of diced meat on his table. Sceen didn't care for bowls. He looked down upon his previous home. The starship was within the ring of the habitat, giving him a breathtaking view of the landscape below; rivers of methane and great flowing glaciers, sprayed and peppered with all manner of glistening blue Sephamagorine foliage. Ja'Rome spoke; this time on speakers throughout the whole starship. "Attention! Starship 2316 will be launching for Schoda shortly. Please expect a short period of freefall conditions as the habitation modules reposition themselves for acceleration!" Pnosta felt a slight jerk as vernier thrusters slowed the rotation of the starship, then a feeling of weightlessness as the view below him shifted from his old home, Interstellar Habitat 32, to a red star, slightly brighter than the other stars in the sky. In the same way Pnosta felt like he had been jerked out of an old life and into a new one. He wondered how he would remember the habitat and his father after being sparated by 2 light-years in space and 6 years in time. A hollow, barely discernable rush was heard from deep within the bowels of the starship. Outside, blue streaks began to flash within the nozzle of the nuclear engine. The engine shook violently on the end of its truss as the streaks intensified to a blinding jet of plasma, then a supernova-like blue flame that reached many times the length of the starship itself. Red veins of coolant spread across the great silver heat radiators. The silver radiators were soon glowing a dull red with long white veins. Lights turned on throughout the length of the starship, illuminating identifying features. It was if the spacecraft, previously rolling silent through space, had righted itself and come to life with a great burst of nuclear energy. Gravity returned in the gallery, this time provided by the linear, rather than circular, acceleration of the starship. Pnosta left his perch, having finished his meal. Six years in space. Many races simply go into cryonic suspension, but Sceen, with their natural patience and slow metabolism, could just wait through such times with ease. Chapter 10 When Pnosta returned to his nestroom he found a perch in there (as he had requested a perch earlier). Ja-Rome had also changed the colour of the walls to a pleasing cream colour. When Pnosta crawled on top of his perch, for the first time he noticed that gravity felt surprisingly lower than he was used to. "Intuitive Computers predict that you are wondering why the acceleration of Starship 2316 is below the reccommended acceleration for a Sephamagore environment." "You could put it like that..." Pnosta didn't like it when QCs spoke when they weren't spoken to, but he knew Intuitive Computers worked on the basis that people didn't always know what was good for them, so QCs didn't always need to do what they were told. "Intuitive Computers predict that you prefer me to 'speak when spoken to,' yet you will still ask me why the acceleration of Starship 2316 is below the reccommended acceleration for a Sephamagore environment." "How can you be so sure?" "Prediction is to an accuracy of 86%... 85%" Pnosta sat in silence for a few seconds, then had his neural interface bring up a book on the wall-screen. He read for a few seconds more, then said; "Okay! Why is the gravity lower!?" Pnosta expected Ja'Rome to say something really irritating like 'prediction confirmed,' but to the Sceen's relief he didn't. Little did Pnosta know that the ICs had also predicted that Ja'Rome saying such a thing would irritate the Sceen, so the QC did not say it. "The second habitation module is inhabited by Astatines." That made sense. Starship 2316 was a cycler, and passed through many predominantly Astatine-inhabited solar systems and habitats on its route. Not replying to the computer, Pnosta went back to his reading. "I have brought up this subject for an important reason." 'Brought up this subject?' The QC was starting to sound like it was a person again. "An Astatine is amnesiatic and mentally unstable. Intuitive computers predict that you have the optimum personality to deal with the situation." "Couldn't you just... simulate the optimum personality. Like the simulated'' psychiatrists back on the habitat?" ''"Astatines are much more mentally sensitive to differences between the real world and simulations that Sceen." "You mean they're picky?" "Yes." Pnosta kriied; for some reason he thought it was funny when QCs agreed with what would usually be thought of as scathing or badly thought-out comments. "Do you agree?" Pnosta realised that he'd already agreed to meeting the Astatine in his head. "Yes, but why not just ask me straight in the first place?" "Intuitive Computers predicted that you would be 8% more likely to agree if there was casual discussion concerning Astatines beforehand." Damned social engineering! "You will meet in the Astatine gallery in 8 decicycles." "Does it have to be there? I'd be more comfortable in the Sceen gallery." Ja'Rome paused. "...that is acceptable. Astatines familiarise themselves with each other by consuming each other's faeces." That was a bombshell. "Are you joking?" "I took the liberty of preparing samples." Chapter 11 Pnosta sat on his perch patiently as he waited for the Astatine to arrive. Of course, he wouldn't be meeting the Astatine in person, she would be killed instantly by the (to Astatines) trecherously low temperatures and high atmospheric pressure. A telepresence flew into the gallery; it was the Sceen evening now, so the blue-ish lights in the room were dimmed. The telepresence was basically a robot with lots of 'arms' for basic manipulation. A film of programmable matter was able to make out the basic shape and texture of an Astatine, while Pnosta's neural interfact did the rest; Ja-Rome would be assisting them in their conversation to help 'break the psychology barrier.' The Astatine was a greyish-brown soil-like colour. It looked a bit like a squid, with a round, bulbous body with about twelve tentacles coming out of the bottom that dragged themselves around independantly like wet hosepipes; it had no distinguishable facial features and didn't seem to have any 'forward' direction. The Astatine was much taller than Pnosta, nearly three metres, but Pnosta was a lot wider. "Hello." said the Astatine. "Hello?" she said again, now more of question than a greeting. "Why isn't he saying anything, is he deaf?" "Remember, the Sceen metabolism is much slower than Astatine metabolism due to the low energy Sephamagore environment." "I have no idea what you just said. Is there always this much ice around?" the Astatine snapped an icicle off of the handrail on the platform in the gallery. "Sceen are slower than Astatines. Yes there is always water-ice in a Sceen environment." Both the Astatine and the QC seemed to be speaking extremely fast to Pnosta. They had just had a conversation in the time it had taken Pnosta to say 'Pleased to meet you.' By the time he had finished saying it, Pnosta wasn't so sure if he was pleased to meet the Astatine any more. "My name's Moiria." "My name is Pnosta." replied Pnosta. During his reply Moiria had slammed her body down on the table. "Please be patient." ''said Ja'Rome. "Boooorrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnggggg!!!" said Moiria, her words stretched out. Pnosta couldn't believe how impulsive, immature, unreasonable and adolescant this Astatine was! Obviously the QC had realised this. ''"Intuitive computers will predict Pnosta's reply via neural interface, allowing for a mutually similar timescale for conversation." "What about me?" whined Moiria. "Please be patient." "Awwwwwwwww!" she whined again, almost comically this time. Chapter 12 After more whining from the Astatine while Pnosta got the hang of the new 'predictive speech' system Ja'Rome had put in place, Moiria's meal arrived. Sceen only really spoke when there was somthing that needed to be said. For what he thought was the first time Pnosta found that he couldn't speak even when he though something did ''need to be said. Before him was an Astatine happily wolfing down a bowl full of... faeces... ''his ''faeces. And this was meant to be social. ''"Do not worry. Astatines regurgitate their meals regularly for re-consumption." "How is that meant to be comforting to tell me that? Also, how is a telepresence even eating something?" "Your mood has improved by 11% due to the realisation that this is not the worst that you will experience. The Astatine herself is eating in the Astatine gallery; the food you see is simply another telepresence. Notice how the faeces has become malleable and fluid instead of solid and pelletised." Pnosta had had enough of talking about poo. "Take it away, then!" The bowl of food disappeared, as did some of the mess left by the Astatine; however, this was only from Pnosta's perspective. The Astatine now appeared to be eating out of thin air. "Be nice to him." she said. "It's not a him, it's an it." replied Pnosta, politely. He had regained his composure, continuing... "QCs, er, Ja'Rome, uses simulated intelligence, not artificial intelligence. It's just a simulation, a trick." "How do I know you're ''not a trick" "''I'm alive" There was a pause for a moment. "I still think it's a he." "But you just described he... it as an it!" Sceen used debate to build relationships, it was considered a very social passtime, but this was just getting confusing. "Ja'Rome," asked Moiria "...are you a he or an it?" "Yes. I am a he." "See!" she replied triumphantly. Pnosta gave a mooing noise of disapproval, "They just tell you what you want to hear. Listen; Ja'Rome! Are you a he or an it?" "I am an it." "Awwww...." said Moiria, obviously desolate (and over such a small matter! Pnosta thought.) Ja'Rome concluded that things weren't going well. Chapter 13 Standing on the bowl-like window beneath the Astatine gallery that provided stunning scenery of the starscapes of interstellar space (that, ironically, the Astatines could not see, as they have no eyes) was a Drone. It had a very strange anatomy, unfamiliar to all the naturally-evolved races in the Zambarau Concord. A small body had two appendiges called 'legs' coming out of the bottom (for movement; legs are familiar to the Sceen), then an appendage called an 'arm' came out of each side of the body for handling objects. No species in the Zambarau Concord had dedicated manipulative appendages suc as these (apart from Kakranukh, though those could also be described as wings). The strangest appendage stuck out from the top of the body. It was called a head. This was a combined sensory/neural organ. This head had big, amber eyes, flappy, bat-like ears, and a snout with a pink tongue and sharp grey teeth; the creature also had grey claws on the ends of its longs fingers and toes. As a whole, the Drone's rough, leather-like skin was a dirty, rusty colour and its body was very lanky and looked like it had a few crucial bones missing (such as shoulder blades, a pelvis, and a lot of ribs). It also had its ankles about a third of the way up its legs, and its wrists a third of the way up its arms, so it was 'folded down' to a diminuative 1 metre in height. Her name was PIP52316832, and she was impressed with the work she'd done. She had been cleaning away dust that had become electrostatically attracted to the window while the robots were occupied cleaning the window from the outside and managed to keep the sweeps of the brush perfectly in line for maximum efficiency. Looking down through the window she saw a bright blue star; her eyes focussed in and her pupils constricted and she identified it as Interstellar Habitat 32. It looked like they were about 46,785,600 kilometres away, in her head, she calculated that that meant they were one point five eight three-recurring cycles into the journey. Just seven hundred and fourteen point three zero six-recurring cycles for ship maintenance! She had better further prioritise her labour timetable! "PIP52316832." She didn't reply. "I require your assistance in a social situation." "What?" "Be present." "Where?" "Area 9. Current gallery." QCs and Drones didn't talk much. QCs did their things. Drones did their things. QCs were virtual, Drones were physical. PIP52316832 walked away with her brush. Chapter 14 Category:Stories Category:Articles by User:Mr.Robbo